The book's silliest sentence comes when Simmons praises the Celtics' Dennis Johnson for making the winning layup after Larry Bird's famous steal against the Pistons in the 1987 playoffs. He was insatiable." Ladies and gentlemen, this is Bill Simmons' unfiltered internal monologue.Īs should be expected in a long book of sports argumentation, the great observations-five of the game's most-notorious playoff chokers (Wilt Chamberlain, Elvin Hayes, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, and Kevin Garnett) all relied on fadeaway jumpers-are interleaved with some howlers. He then decrees that Malone was "the Marilyn Chambers of rebounding. Alas, in the same write-up, Simmons sees fit to list dozens and dozens of C-list celebrities who, like Moses Malone, "had one ploy that brought them inordinate success": Michael " Let's Get Ready To Rumble!" Buffer, Jeff Foxworthy, Vanna White, and on and on. The Rockets and Sixers star was the greatest offensive rebounder ever, Simmons argues, thanks to his mastery of the "Ass Attack"-a maneuver in which he'd "sneak under the backboard … slam his butt into his opponent to create the extra foot of space he needed, then jump right to where the rebound was headed." This Ass Attack stuff is fantastic-an evocative, strange, funny, entirely apt sketch of Malone's greatness. Consider the section on Moses Malone, part of Simmons' quest to identify the NBA's "pantheon." Simmons makes a surprisingly strong case that Malone, a guy most of us don't consider a hoops icon, is one of the top 12 players in NBA history.
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